NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
COCA-COLA 600
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
MAY 26, 2016
JIMMIE JOHNSON LEADS TEAM CHEVY IN QUALIFYING AT BRISTOL
Four Chevy SS Drivers in Top 12
CONCORD, N.C. – (May 26, 2016) – Jimmie Johnson was fastest among the Chevrolet drivers in qualifying for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The six time NSCS champion posted the seventh fastest lap with a time of 190.282 mph/ 28.379 seconds in his No. 48 Lowe’s Patriotic Chevrolet SS. Johnson leads all drivers with seven victories at the 1.5-mile track.
Kevin Harvick posted his 10th top-10 qualifying effort of the season, by posting the eighth fastest time of the third and final round in the knock-out style qualifying session in the No. 4 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet SS.
Paul Menard earned his third trip thus far in 2016 to the final qualifying round in the No. 27 Knauf/Menards Chevrolet SS and will start 11th in the series longest race.
Rookie of the Year Contender, Chase Elliott, piloted the No. 24 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet SS to a 12th-place starting spot. Elliott was the quickest rookie qualifier and rounded out the Chevy power in the top tier of qualifying for one of NASCAR’s crown jewel races, the Coca-Cola 600.
Martin Truex, Jr. (Toyota) was the pole winner, Joey Logano (Ford) qualified second, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. (Ford) qualified third, Denny Hamlin (Toyota) qualified fourth, and Brad Keselowski (Ford) was fifth to round out the Top 5.
The action from Charlotte Motor Speedway will get underway at 6:00 pm ET on Sunday afternoon May 29. Live coverage will be available on FOX, PRN Radio, Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 90 and NASCAR.com.
POST QUALIFYING QUOTES:
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S PATRIOTIC CHEVROLET SS – Qualified 7th
“The stability in the track was improving. I had a couple more tenths in the lap time. I just overdrove the car in that last run. Our car was really good and I’ve got to take the blame for only getting P7 in the third round. I had a great (Turns) 1 and 2 and got extremely greedy in the short conversation I had with myself on the backstretch and blew Turns 3 and 4. This one’s on me. To make a big mistake like that and still end up P7, we’ll take it. It’s a very exciting weekend. It’s great to be racing at home and to have this beautiful race car. Something that’s really cool is that Lowe’s is giving 10 percent off to all the men and women that serve our country. So if you need something, head to the store.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS PIT STALL SELECTION? BEING NUMBER 7 IN A LONG RACE, DOES IT REALLY MATTER?
“It’s a long race but you just want to increase your chances and your odds. The better the pit pick, the better your starting track position. The pit pick is probably more useful and helpful than the track position at the start of the race, but we’ll take anything we can get.”
DO YOU WANT TO GET BACK TO VICTORY LANE HERE IN CHARLOTTE?
“Yeah, it’s been a while. We all love racing here. Hendrick Motorsports has quite a history here. Our race shop is just a mile down the road and it’s wonderful news that Mr. Hendrick just got inducted into the Hall of Fame. A win here would be great.”
KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 4 JIMMY JOHN’S CHEVROLET SS – Qualified 8th
“We just guessed that the pace would pick up like it has every year that I’ve ever been here. So, I think we were just off on our travels and just kind of had to deal with what we had; slip-sliding around a little bit more than we expected and the speeds being slower. So, we just missed it a little bit. But still, we’re where we need to be up at the front of the field.”
PAUL MENARD, NO. 27 KNAUF/MENARDS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 11TH
“We made a lot of gains today. We struggled a little bit in practice. We made some good adjustments to get it better in practice and then some more for qualifying. I just screwed up my last run. I felt like the car was definitely top 10 capable. I think we wound up 11th, but I lost a bunch of time off of Turn 4 just drove a push into it.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 NAPA AUTO PARTS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 12TH
“I thought it was a good effort, obviously, hate to make the last round and be last in the last round. We kind of threw a Hail Mary at it there at the end to try to help our car to drive better from that last round to make it as close to perfect as we could get it. It just didn’t work out. We will kind of take that knowledge and try to move forward. I am encouraged by how our car drove last week, which I think is good. I hope that translates to Sunday going into the nighttime you are going to spend some of the race during the day, so that will be a little bit different. I was encouraged by how our car drove last week so hopefully carry some of that to the race on Sunday.”
WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED?
“We got down and hit the race track there in (Turns) 1 and 2. We were getting aggressive on our air pressures trying to squeeze the most out of it as we could. It just didn’t work out, but like I said you hate to be last in the last round, but 12th is a decent spot for picking pits on Sunday. Which 600 miles is a long race, it’s also a lot of time spent on pit road. Hopefully, if we can make it to the end of the race we will try to have a decent pit box for the race on Sunday.”
RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 WHELEN CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 14TH
“We ended up 14th and it wasn’t what we wanted being 11th in practice. Didn’t really change a whole lot and I think the track changed more than we thought it was going to. Our Whelen Chevrolet was… I feel like we are going to have a good car, we just didn’t have as good of a car as we needed to here in qualifying.”
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONWIDE CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 25TH
WHAT WERE YOU FIGHTING IN QUALIFYING?
“Just being frustrated. We weren’t good when we unloaded and we never really got better, not good enough to make the next round I guess. Qualifying has been rough on us all year and we showed up pretty far off. Just real hard to get it dialed in there.”
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